Secotul Edition of the Commercium EpistoHcum. 153 



assertion, and it will appear that a parcel is said to exist in the 

 handwriting of Collins with this title, " Excerpta ex D. Gre- 

 gorii Epistolis cum D. Leibnitio communicanda, tibique post- 

 quam perlegerit ille reddenda." The party addressed is Olden- 

 burg. Not one word is said of any date at which the parcel laas 

 sent ; and this defect the new editors supply in the second addi- 

 tion to the paragraph above. Suppose Collins never to have ful- 

 filled his intention of sending this parcel, and all presumption 

 raised in the report against the originality of Leibnitz disap- 

 pears. The importance and the unfairness of the addition 

 will now be clearly seen. 



Where did the new editors get this date ? Plad it existed 

 in the handwriting of Collins or Oldenburg, they would have 

 gladly certified it, according to their usual practice. I suspect 

 they saw that the next communication from Oldenburg to 

 Leibnitz was marked (49, 131) as having been forwarded to 

 Leibnitz* on the 26th of June ; and jumped (might I not 

 almost say sneaked) to a conclusion, that the parcel was for- 

 warded at the same time, and announced the conclusion with- 

 out grounds. Observe that the letter of advice, which was 

 part of this parcel, written to Oldenburg by Collins, is given 

 loithoiit date by the original editors, and no date is supplied 

 by the new ones. They always give dates in other cases. 



I have looked carefully through the original edition, and I 

 find that every letter is fully dated except four: and that of 

 the four exceptions, one is dated by year and month (the day 

 being omitted) ; one is CoUins's copy of one of his own letters, 

 and the editors seem to be inclined to take Collins's full date 

 as that of the copy (I should take it of course to be that of the 

 letter); one is Keill's letter to Leibnitz, written by order of 

 the Society, which is only dated as to when it was read to the 

 Society, Keill being left to put the date of transmission after- 

 wards. One remains wholly undated, and without any account 

 of the reason why ; and that one is the letter on which the 

 whole turns. Everything depends on Collins sending a cer- 

 tain letter to Oldenburg, with other letters which the first 

 directs him to send on to Leibnitz ; and that first letter is the 

 only one in the whole book of the date of which nothing is 

 said. 



Collins was an accomptant, a writer on book-keeping, an 

 immense correspondent, one of that class who are usually 

 rather pedantic than otherwise about dates, dockets, and direc- 

 tions. We are left to believe, first, that he did not date this 



* Leibnitz, in liis answer, acknowledges letters of the 26th of Jiilj/ -. but 

 between Junii and Jutii the difference is so slight, that we may suspect a 

 printer'* or writer's error. It is not of much consequence. 



